Desperate Empty Embarrassment

Joe Klein used to be in the tank for John McCain. He was one of those reporters who was taken in by John McCain's charm, who really believed that John McCain was a "Maverick". He has been truly disappointed by the campaign that McCain has run, and has really gone off about it. Today in a column for Time, Klein writes that the McCain campaign is a "desperate empty embarrassment."

Klein writes:

I'm of two minds about how to deal with the McCain campaign's further descent into ugliness. Their strategy is simple: you throw crap against a wall and then giggle as the media try to analyze the putresence in a way that conveys a sense of balance: "Well, it is bull-pucky, but the splatter pattern is interesting..." which, of course, only serves to get your perverse message out. I really don't want to be a part of that. But...every so often, we journalists have a duty to remind readers just how dingy the McCain campaign, and its right-wing acolytes in the media (I'm looking at you, Sean Hannity) have become--especially in their efforts to divert public attention from the economic
crisis we're facing. And so inept at it: other campaigns have decided that their only shot is going negative, but usually they don't announce it, as several McCain aides have in recent days--there's no way we can win on the economy, so we're going to go sludge-diving.

But since we are dealing with manure here, I'll put the rest of this post below the fold.

It is appropriate that the prime vessel for this assault is Sarah Palin, whose very presence on a national ticket is an insult to your intelligence. She now has "credibility," we are told, because she managed to read talking points off notecards in the debate last week with unwitting enthusiasm.

I am glad that Joe Klein woke up and realized that John McCain in 2008 is not the man who ran in 2000.